JV Lent: Prayer

Prayer is the first value of Lent. Prayer comes first because prayer is encounter with God. We've heard that all things are possible with God. No good things are possible without God. So, from a Christian perspective, fasting and almsgiving without prayer lose their full meaning and value.

Prayer is an aspect of Lent we tend to ignore. Perhaps that's because it seems so simple. For the Catholic who prays every night, the Lenten practice of prayer may seem unnecessary (“I already talk to G on the daily. I'm all set.”). For the Catholic who only goes to mass on Sundays (or the CAPE Catholics*) prayer may seem foreign (“I don't know how to pray”). To everyone, prayer can easily seem like a box to check – a Hail Mary here, and Our Father there, and maybe a petition for your grandmother's health.

But prayer isn't a box to check. Prayer isn't a chore. God wants us to pray because that's how we build our relationship with God. A Peruvian friend told me years ago: “Jesús y yo, wasupeamos” (“Jesus and me, we what's up”). That sense of confident friendship with God only comes through prayer.

Of course Lent is also a time of repentance. On Ash Wednesday the priest says “repent and believe in the Gospel” when he** smears the ashes on your forehead. Repent means to “turn back.” We're being called to turn back from our sins. Not just to feel sorry for doing something wrong, but to turn from the roads, the habits, the comfortable situations that lead us to do wrong in the first place. Repentance means change. Prayer is the perfect place for repentance to start. You can take a long, loving look at your failures and still see yourself as God does: as worthy of love, as worth dying for. And once you understand your failings you can begin to build the habits you need to change them.***

As I mentioned before, this Lent I'm following the Ignatian Solidarity Network's “Lift Every Voice” blog. This series of reflections on the US's original sin of racism is teasing out the idea of social sin. It's got me reflecting on moments of laziness that lead to complicity with racist institutions. It's got me thinking over the sins of omission I have committed when I stayed quiet instead of speaking up. It's got me thinking about how to build stronger habits of anti-racism so that I can be more the person I hope to be. It's got me thinking about how to live my life when I return to the United States after 2 years of JVC in Peru.

It's not a quick Our Father/Hail Mary combo. It's not a simple reading of a prayer someone else wrote. It's a reflection on the sins self and society that leads to repentance. That's this JV's Lenten prayer.

What's yours?

*Catholics who only go to mass on Christmas, Ash Wednesday, Pentecost, and Easter.

**Sadly I'm not being politically incorrect. I'm reflecting the egregious institutional sexism of the Catholic Church.

***For this process I recommend reading The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. You may think I'm joking. I'm not. Here's the link to buy the book.